Day of Reckoning
by ProngsletIsMyHero73180
Summary: Post-Ozymandias, Pre-Granite State. Jesse thinks about how he got here. Rating for language.


I think about Alaska a lot.

About how I almost – _almost_ – made it out. Before everything went so fucking wrong, before shit _really_ went down. I had the money – I could've just got in the van and drove out of there. Could've made it out OK. I mean, yeah, I would've been haunted by it all, but you know, I deserve to be haunted. I deserve those ghosts. And I would've taken them with me when I left, but it still would've been better. I could've been Mr. Credit-to-Society. I could've made it better, I think. Never right, but better. Changed my ways. Started from scratch. Clean slate.

But it all just exploded. When I realized – when I really _realized_ – what Mr. White had _done_ – I couldn't leave. I couldn't just _go_. Just wash my hands of the whole mess and pretend it wasn't my problem. How could I? God, I was so angry. Betrayed.

I didn't even know the half of it.

_"Mr. White – he's the Devil."_

But that's not really what did it. I knew what he was before that. I didn't at first, but by then I'd figured it out. I knew what he was capable of. I knew he was a monster.

And the thing is, I fucking KNEW he'd poisoned Brock! I guessed it _immediately_ – Andrea calling me, sobbing, racing to the hospital, seeing him lying there, unconscious, in ICU… and then the cigarette. And I'd _known_. But he talked me down ("Jesse, who do you know whose had children hurt before? Gus!") and I believed the lie. Why did I do that? Did I actually believe him? Or was it just easier? Better for Gus to be the monster than my own partner – my teacher. Did I just not have it in me to pull the trigger? I don't even know anymore. I don't know.

_"Jesse… why, why would I poison a child?"_

_"Jesse, I did NOT kill Mike."_

_"Jesse, I am not a murderer. I'm not, and you're not, and it's as simple as that."_

Lies within lies within lies. Sometimes I wonder if he's as lost in them as I am.

Because it was never supposed to come to this, you know? Sure we were criminals, but not, like, _criminals._ Not like those psychos you see on TV. We just wanted to make some money – just dip our feet in a bit and then high-tail it out of there. Mr. White wasn't always this way.

_"Everything you did, you did for your family. Right?"_

Or maybe he was. Maybe it had been inside him, all along, buried beneath that front of a nerdy, harmless old guy in Tighty-Whitey underwear.

Maybe it was in me, too.

_"I accept who I am. I'm the bad guy."_

I'm not the victim. Brock was a victim. I'm a drug dealer. I'm a murderer. Sure, I felt guilty, but what good is that? What good is any of it when a man is in the ground because of me? What good is it, when innocent people suffer because of my piss-poor choices? What good is it, when it's Andrea and Brock's picture up on that wall?

Andrea, who already lost her little brother because I tried to do the right thing for once, and it went very, very wrong. Brock, who was already hospitalized just so some asshole could get to me.

When I'm not chained in the lab, I'm in a hole in the ground – a giant coffin. Except I'm still alive. I'm still alive, and I'm buried, and there's not a single fucking thing I can do to get out without burying Andrea and Brock too. And I hate Todd, and I hate Mr. White, but I hate myself so much more. Because everything I've done – every decision I've made – has led to this. Oh, Mr. White helped get me here, but like I said: I'm not the victim. I did this. And some days, I think I deserve this.

This is what hell looks like, I think. And it's fitting because, really… where else was I gonna end up?

_"I watched Jane die."_

But then there are the _other_ days. Days where my insides thrash and rage against this whole thing, where I want to scream, 'C'mon, I'm not as bad as that bitch – why am I down here alone?!', where I want to stick a knife in Mr. White's eye. I imagine it, play it all out in my mind, start it over from the beginning and kill him every time, in so many different ways. I get more and more creative about it - I think it's the most time I've spent planning out anything.

Hey, I'm applying myself, aint I?

_I got my Day of Reckoning, bitch – now let me give you yours._

I tried to take on the Devil. I tried to bring him to his knees. Instead, I ended up flat on my belly, hiding under a car as gunshots fired all around me. One officer dead, the other injured but still brave, looking death in the face and saying, "Go fuck yourself."

But I'm not that brave.

_"Coward."_

I'm not a hero.

I am my worst mistakes.

_"Mr. White – he's the Devil."_

And now I burn in hell.

A/N: Just me trying to get inside Jesse's head after Ozymandias. I have to find some way to pass the time until next Sunday, right? What an episode... :O


End file.
